Fanfiction and Why It Doesn't Suck

Like most female 20somethings, I was at one point very into the fangirling scene. I wrote fanfiction, I made music videos, put together fanmixes, and created horrible graphics using a version of Photoshop I or someone bearing a resemblance to me possibly downloaded in my college dorm room off Limewire.

I would here like to interrupt myself by stating that perhaps “most” was the wrong word, as I have met many normal female 20somethings who don’t have a fricking clue what I’m talking about when I use words like “fangirl” or “ship” as a verb involving the romantic involvement of two fictional people. So by “most” I mean “most of the people I met online in fangirl communities.” Or perhaps “all” in that case.

Anyway. Fanfiction is probably always going to be controversial, in the dumbest way something can be controversial. Are we talking about climate change? Well, no, we’re talking about whether or not it’s at all okay for a 15-year-old to write a scene where Mulder and Scully get stuck in an elevator and the lights go out, and – oh, looks like some feelings are gonna come to the surface.

Because fan fiction has one point, and one point only: to get two characters to have sex. Sure, they might not always have sex IN the story, but that’s gonna be the eventual outcome. And don’t try pointing me towards fan fiction with an actual plotline and no romantic entanglements. That shit isn’t real fanfic. No one wants to read that. If I wanted to read something with “plot” I’d read a real book written by an author who creates his/her own characters. When someone tries writing regular fic with a plot (ex: Mulder and Scully are on an undercover mission to stop Krycek from helping the Russians, but – uh-oh, looks like the hotel they’re staying in only has one room left), I will skim until I see the words “breathed,” “mouth,” or “stared.”

This was all recently brought to mind because my oldest brother sent me an e-mail with the subject heading “You can never undo this.” Attached was this image, which he says I made in 2002 (I have no recollection of this, but there’s no other reason on God’s green earth why he’d have it on his computer):

I don’t know why they’re dancing next to a hill. I can only pray that it was supposed to be horrible, and just part of some joke I was making about people who make really crappy graphics. And X-Files was basically over in 2002. Why would I do this? WHY?

Anyway. So that image, coupled with the fact that I recently read the first fic I’ve read in a year or two (Ben/Leslie, Parks and Rec, it is awesome), made me ponder how viable fanfic really is as a thing. Is it okay? I would argue that different kinds of writing serve different purposes. You want Severe Thinky Time, read Borges. You want Kind of Numb Brain Time, read Charlaine Harris. You want Super Happy Squishy Awesome Time, read fanfic. It doesn’t make you more intelligent, and it certainly doesn’t help you become a better writer, if that’s what you’re after, but it can make you happy in the I Feel Surrounded by a Pure Golden Glow of Happiness kind of way. Because two characters that you love just made out on a couch after flirting in a true to character way (we’re ignoring bad fanfic here, which is what the majority of fanfic is).

I don’t read a lot of trash lit, but I imagine that’s why people read some of it. That or for the aforementioned brain numbing. No, it’s not amazingly written, but it can make you really happy. There has to be a place for that. If it’s the only thing you’re reading, that’s a problem, in much the same way that having a few drinks now and then is really nice and shouldn’t be frowned upon, but you drink every day and you’ve got a problem, my friend. Don’t just read what I now want to call “shit lit” because it rhymes, but totally read it some of the time if you want to. And if someone makes fun of you for reading whatever it is you’re reading because they see it as lowbrow, tell them to go screw themselves.

My Carefully Thought Out — Nah, It's Stream of Consciousness Again

I am reviewing once more! Ok, so here's the thing with my blog: I want to do book reviews, but I don't like writing them. There's a way of doing them I've never really grabbed a hold of mentally, so I prefer to just rant about book-related topics for the most part (or do blessed, blessed memes).

But if I really love a book, or it's consumed a lot of my time (*coughTheOldCuriosityShopcough*), I feel I should mention it. And tell you all it's WAY AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD READ IT.

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance Review

Elna Baker is a single Mormon lady living in NYC. Her dad works for Boeing, so she's lived all around the world, but she got into NYU and just kind of stuck around after that.

I should make clear that this is a memoir and not fiction.

Like most of my favorite books, this is split into a series of essays, although they were chronological. She talks about things like working at FAO Schwartz and dealing with NYC mothers; her tremendous weight loss (don't look for pictures, for there are not any); and the many, many guys she's kissed.

I'm not usually big into introspection, but she manages to do it while remaining funny. As a former conservative, straightline (did I make that term up?) Christian, I was totally with her on the struggle between wanting to either fully commit to your religion in its most literal way, or just eschewing the whole thing and becoming "worldly."

She's honest to a fault, which impressed me. I mean, one can never truly know if someone's being honest, but she admitted things I don't think I'd be able to, and while there isn't exactly a neat resolution (I mean, she's like 30 years old), she does an excellent job showing her slow evolution from teenage Mormon to Complicated Elna Baker Who Can't Subscribe to Just One Set of Beliefs.

I rarely recommend books. But this one is awesome and hilarious and thoughtful and should be read.

Age 30+ Books posted a video of hers when blogging about this book, so I shall copy her and do the same, because it's great.



Patrick Dennis: One of Those People You Should Realize Is Awesome

For those unaware, the Literary Blog Hop is fricking awesome. The topic for this week is "Talk about one author that you love and why his or her writing is unique. Please be specific."

All right. I thought this might be hard, but the second after I read it, the name ‘Patrick Dennis’ popped into my head.

Patrick Dennis is awesome.

He wrote primarily in the ‘50s, and the only thing of his most people have heard of is Auntie Mame, more properly Auntie Mame, An Irreverent Escapade. It is both right and proper that that’s what they’ve heard of, because it’s almost definitely his best novel. His others are rather difficult to find nowadays. Auntie Mame’s survived because 1) it is awesome, and 2) it was made into a movie AND a musical, so people continue to be interested in it. It’s the story of a young boy whose father dies and he goes to live with his highly eccentric, wealthy aunt.

Dennis has been likened to Dickens in his writing style NOT because he’s overly verbose, but because of the level of detail included in his writing. And it’s period detail. Footnotes in his books actually would be helpful because of all the ‘50s cultural references made, fashion designers mentioned and slang used. But they’re immensely readable books. The three that I’ve read have all been episodic, so if you want to go back to them later you can flip around if you want.

Early-in-the-book example:

Such a room might have depressed most people, but not Auntie Mame. She was as cheerful as a bird. In fact she looked rather like a bird in her bed jacket made of pink ostrich feathers. She was reading Gide’s Les Faux-Monnayeurs and smoking Melachrino cigarettes through a long amber holder.

He captures the female voice extreeeemely well. I could make some stupid comment about this possibly being because he was bisexual, but I shall not go there. No! This blog shall have only immensely unstupid comments. Remember when I likened the Brontes to sea turtles? Yeah. Stuff of such ponderous weight even Joyce would collapse under it.

She was in her big gold bed sticking pins into a war map of Europe when I floated up the stairs.

“Is that you, my little love?” she called.

“Yes, Auntie Mame,” I said, peering in. “Are you awake?”

“Of course not, darling,” she said, “it’s my custom to sleep sitting bolt upright with a map in my lap and all the lights burning. It’s so Napoleonic.”

And finally, one of the most oft-quoted lines:

Morning, I soon discovered, was one o’clock for Auntie Mame. Early Morning was eleven, and the Middle of the Night was nine.

I’m not good at all at dissecting a literary voice, but I do know that Patrick Dennis has a distinctive one, and it’s one of my favorites. Auntie Mame might be my favorite book. And its competitors are things like Bleak House, Gone With the Wind, The Lorax…you know, deep things. Not to get all sentimental, but Auntie Mame comes down to being a love story, because for all her eccentricities, Auntie Mame really, really loves Patrick (yes, the main character’s name is Patrick Dennis), and he very much loves her.

So this really comes down to being a recommendation of the book (and movie, which is almost as good) Auntie Mame. But I do think Patrick Dennis needs more recognition as an author. He’s fantastic.

 

Hazards of Reading

Reading in the park next to Navy Pier for four hours. Ostensibly a good idea, but I've developed what my friend has dubbed 'a reader sunburn.' This is apparently where your knuckles remain pale white (as you are, of course, pale white) and the backs of your hands suddenly resemble half-boiled lobsters. You were worth it, New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance.

Dickens vs. Austen Cage Match

Brief Thoughts About The Old Curiosity Shop

• Dickens uses many words, but English vocab needs to survive, damnit, and I applaud his efforts.
• So apparently they used to throw dead kittens at criminals. Thank you for that bit of disgusting historical knowledge, sir.
• I love Richard Swiveller.

I feel like people are not so much making this a battle between Dickens and Austen as reviewing the book they read. Maybe that’s how we’re supposed to do it? But screw that – it’s Dickens vs. Austen cage match time. I have Things to Say about both authors, and I do not pussyfoot around when it comes to picking sides. HEED THIS, ALL YE.

Dickens                                                            Austen

Has lots of characters of disparate                   Has a decent number of characters,

social statuses                                                  most of which have the same status.

Has pretty much flat, sucky heroines.            Has generally kickass heroines.

Uses an omniscient narrator.                           Uses a limited omniscient narrator who usually spends most of its time with the heroine and making witty societal observations.

Covers a vast area of London and                   Usually covers a place like Shropshire.

sometimes England.                                        And by ‘covers’ I mean ‘shows a house in this place.'

I could go on, but I’m not going to, because I don’t want to have to think of more things. Basically, when debating the question who was the better 19^th century British author, I think it has to come down to Dickens. Yeah, Austen is awesome, but what has the majority of her fans retained from her books? A love story. Austen fans irritate me to no end at times when I am reminded that some of them choose to make her books entirely about pretty dresses and whether or not two people get together. Since Austen was reactionary to the Romantic era and most of her books, if you come down to it, are about financial matters, this is just — ARGH.

I’m not saying one can’t enjoy the fact that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy get together; and the BBC miniseries of P&P is certainly not meant to be watched with any other point in mind, but if that’s all you’re getting from her books, then you’re missing most of it.

Anyway, but since this IS what a large number of people get, let’s set that as the norm and turn to Dickens. Do people celebrate Dickens for his romance? No. He gives a panoramic view of Victorian London, and it is awesome. He covers various types of people, their jobs, their customs; you gain an immensely better understanding of mid-19^th century England from his books.

Now, is this a fair comparison? Well, no. Because Dickens was trying to create this kind of complete world, and Austen wisely stuck to what she understood, which was Regency drawing rooms. They shouldn’t even be compared, but if said comparison is forced, then Dickens wins.

Onto the book! I will try to be brief, as I dislike super-long blog entries. The center of the book is Little Nell journeying through England with her grandfather as they try to escape the reach of the tiny evil man named Mr Quilp. Early in the book, Nell mentions Pilgrim’s Progress. It becomes something of a model for her own journey with her grandfather (unintentionally, of course – she doesn’t say ‘Halloo! Let’s go on a journey similar to that of Christian and his other allegorical mates!’). For those unaware, PP is an allegorical tale of a Christian struggling through life and reaching heaven (oh. I’m assuming on that last part as I haven’t read it). The people they meet on this journey are kickass Dickensian characters, all of whom are fun to read about. Little Nell and her grandfather, however, are fricking boring. Why? Because he’s way old and she’s a living saint, and that might be the most boring combination ever.

Fortunately! As is always the case with Dickens, there are multiple threads, and whenever we switch to someone's other than Nell's it tends to get awesome. Dickens does so, so well with his side characters. He and J.K. Rowling are compared frequently, and I think that’s a good comparison. Sometimes, you get these characters who seem completely minor and comical at the beginning, but over time they become hugely important. Rowling does this (Luna Lovegood), and in this book, I ended up loving Richard Swiveller, who starts out as drunk and annoying. He’s just an awesome guy.

Ah! Not enough space! This book is stupidly long, so it’s difficult to sum up all one’s thoughts. Quilp is the sort of early Dickens bad guy who seems to be all bad. Later they’d get a little less black and white (not all the time), but early on it was kind of Good Guys/Bad Guys, with the exception of my beloved Swiveller. Anyway, Quilp is kind of Satan incarnate, but the thing is, he’s a dwarf, and people are always — ALWAYS hideously nasty to him. Things like “A man of your appearance couldn’t be [a choice spirit]. If you’re any spirit at all, sir, you’re an evil spirit.”

Now, let’s imagine Quilp hears this kind of thing, and sees people staring at him in horror, his entire life. He can either become overly humble and accept everyone’s opinion of him; struggle to do as many good things as possible and hope people overlook their natural aversion to him; or he can embrace it and use what he knows frightens people to what he sees as his advantage. He does some truly awful things in the book, and he’s not excused from them, but I think his character needs a bit more sympathy.

In the interests of wrapping this up, I’ll cut myself off. Should this be read? If you really like Dickens, yes. Otherwise read something like Bleak House or Our Mutual Friend. I will say, in defense of this very…very long and sometimes infuriating book, that there’s almost always an emotional pay-off in Dickens. You invest the time and the eyestrain, and something’ll happen to characters you come to love that will fill you with incredible joy. Maybe the joy won’t last, and something bad will befall them, but like in life, it’s not all good or bad. A reviewer of something else Dickens wrote said there are “rewards for the persevering.” I absolutely agree.

Book Orders: The Awesomeness of Yesteryear

Do you remember how fricking amazing book orders were? That was the best part of my grade school experience, hands down. Or it at LEAST vies with the time my fourth grade class made a baobob tree out of chicken wire, cardboard and paper mache while watching The Lion King.

Scholastic would send out their little forms, consisting of pages and pages of discounted books. You’d circle way too many; your mom would make you whittle it down (or be overly indulgent until your dad stepped in), and then you waited. Weeks would go by, you’d learn about long division, and one day there would be several red and white boxes from Scholastic on your teacher’s desk, and she – demon harpy that she suddenly was to you – would refuse to open them until the end of the school day, knowing full well that once the class got their books/stickers, there’d be no going back to learning.

I totally want book orders as an adult. Some might say that would be browsing Amazon at work, but it’s totally different. I demand insanely thin paper catalogues with pictures of the books that I can circle, then add up the cost of on the order form, hand that with a check to some authority figure, and have the books withheld from me until I get off work, making the receiving of them all the sweeter.

…it’s thoughts like these that make us a nation of adolescents. I have precisely two responsible, adult-like friends, and I’m intimidated by them because they understand things like ‘mortgages’ and ‘car…things.’

I blame this entire entry on Borders sending out a 50% off coupon today to their mailing list. It’s made me way too giddy.

That One Book, Two Book, Three Book Thing I Don't Quite Understand the Origin Of

People reference this meme...and point to its originator...but when I go to that person's blog, I can find no posting about it, and thus am confused. The way to credit it seems to be to point to the blog you saw it on, so...I saw this at Karen's Books and Chocolate, so...yayyyy.

Oh, and there's a spoiler for The Old Curiosity Shop. So if you actually care about that (which you shouldn't) then skip that awesome paragraph.

Book I’m currently reading

The Old Curiosity Shop. Like Karen I am reading multiple books, but this is the one I’m trying the hardest to finish because of the whole ‘deadline’ thing. Stupid deadlines...basically, at this point, any time Nell shows up I want to yell “JUST DIE ALREADY.” I love Victorian lit, but one of the things that really pisses me off is when a character is too fricking good to live. If they respond to things said by other characters in the book “humbly, with a clear brow and an honest heart,” then they’ve got 300 pages left to live. And they’ll die with people weeping all around them while they talk about how they see angels’ faces. I’m not saying I’m against people being loved, or, y’know, angels and stuff, but the fact that it happens five bajillion times in Victorian lit? No. Lame.

Last book I finished

Bossypants. I cannot photograph it because it was a library copy and I lent it to my friend Doug before returning it. Sorry, People Waiting Who Had a Legit Hold. “As a Tina Fey fan from years back…[blah blah, insert same hugely laudatory thing every other white 20something girl has said about the book].” Yeah, it’s really good and feministy and affirms my belief that both Tina Fey and I would be so uncomfortable meeting (she not being one of those ‘people person’ celebrities and me probably vomiting on myself) that it’s good that’s never going to happen.

Next book I want to read

  

I want to finish The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, because it is really really great and all should read it. That is how I would present this book in fourth grade, and it is how I am presenting it now.

Last book I bought

As of this morning? By proxy? Using my friend’s Amazon Prime account? Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. I’ve given up on my library system. They’re still processing their copies and it came out two weeks ago. Come on, Chicago.

Last book I was given

The Elegance of the Hedgehog. My mom doesn’t like navigating The Internet, so she calls me and has me order stuff for her on Amazon. Occasionally she buys me presents for doing this. I kept putting off getting it because I was all “No! If you can read a book in the original language you need to do that, damnit!” But I started reading the English version on Amazon, and then was like “…oh. This will take me ten billion years if I read it in French.” For the author’s vocab is extremely good, and I do not have the time to look up new words every other sentence.

In Which We Again Discover That I Have No Focusing Skills

It's Monday! What are you reading is hosted by One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.

The books I was working on on May 2nd have actually significantly changed for this past week, and I didn't finish any of them. They're just on hold. Yeah.

1. The Old Curiosity Shop 

Okay, this one didn't change, because I'm supposed to have it done by next Saturday. Hah! I just counted a 14-line sentence. In tiny tiny type. Touché, Dickens. Nah, he's great, but I do understand why people who love, oh, say Hemingway, hate Dickens. His sentences are the least concise you will ever encounter ever. Oh, except for maybe someone like Joyce. So not 'ever,' but they're long, use tons of commas and tend not to get to the point. Kind of like this blog. Ooh, I hope everyone imitates their favorite author's writing style. Unless they like Hemingway, because his style is gross.

 2. The Enchanted April

This is an insanely short book, but I MUST KEEP READING DICKENS. And thus I cannot finish it yet. But it's awesome. I can't even explain how it's not super-boring, as the plot is four English women in the 1920s sitting around an Italian castle and looking at flowers. But it's not. It's like experiencing a nice relaxing break while reading it. Then you look up, and oh, you're still in your lame receptionist job and not looking out across the sea in Italy. Boo.

3. Elliot Allagash

This was one of those 'I'm at the library and trying to wait until the checkout line is shorter, so I'm going to browse the popular section until it becomes so' books. It's really short and touted as being hilarious, so all right. Elliot Allagash is a super-rich 13-year-old who keeps getting kicked out of schools. At his newest one, he meets the least popular kid and decides, as an experiment to stave off boredom, to make him the most popular kid. It's by Simon Rich. It seems not bad.

4. The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance

I found out about this through Age 30+. It sounded hilarious, which I am for, so I checked it out from the library and it is awesome. I just told my mom the title and she made me order it for her. It's another in the series of humorous essays written by 20somethings that seems so popular right now (thank God, for they are awesome — except for I Was Told There'd Be Cake — that was not awesome).  Elna Baker writes about being a 20something Mormon living in New York City. And she occasionally uses swear words and everything! It is a quality book. 

Much like with people reading Dracula and then immediately picking up Frankenstein, upon checking out NYRMSHD (I'm not writing out that whole title again), I also had to get Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. Also, people shouldn't read Frankenstein after Dracula, because the latter is awesome and the former sucks it.

What else? I bought a shoe organizer at Bed Bath and Beyond. It's going to turn my life around.

In Which I Am Condescending and Want Free Things

Three months ago I had no idea what BookExpo America (or 'BEA') was, and now I'm overwhelmingly jealous of any and all who are going. I could explain what it is, but frankly I'm not entirely sure, and it's probably more informative just to google it. The main thing that interests me is, of course, that one gets free stuff, of which I am pro.

Of course, by this time next year my book blog will have millions of followers, all of them brilliant, and it will make more sense for me to attend such an event. And my reasons will perhaps be less mercenary (but probably not).

Speaking of followers, I am stuck in something of a conundrum. Can you be stuck in a conundrum? Probably not, but English is a flexible language, unlike blasted French. Anyway: followers. I've noticed in the course of browsing through various book blogs that some people seem to be what I'm going to call FollowerWhores. They welcome all, so long as the end result shores up their numbers. These blogs then can become a bit...how do I put it...stupid. Basically, I'd rather have 10 followers whose opinions I really respect than 100 who review books like Pitbulls in a Skirt 3 (actual book title -- although I do admit that The Face That Launched a Thousand Bullets by T. Styles is something I would totally read).

Which is why I don't understand things like giveaways that you have to be a follower to join. I mean, okay, if you're giving away something, you might as well get something out of it, but do you really want people following you whom you're basically paying to read your blog? I want people following me who feel compelled to follow me due to my sparkling and effervescent wit.

In conclusion, The X-Files pilot is awesome. I can't actually tell anymore if it's good or not, but I've seen it so many times that basically all the lines are iconic. "I'm here to solve this case, Mulder; I want the truth!" And Gillian Anderson with her giant suits with shoulderpads. Did you know she was 24 when they filmed it? That's just terrifying to me. Good job, madam.

A Post With Little Point

Harry Potter. Why is it so awesome?

In 2009, I started a re-read of the series, which fortunately coincided with my ten year anniversary of first starting it. I got halfway through Goblet of Fire and got swamped with other things. What with the advent of the second part of the last movie this coming July, I've picked it up again. I just finished GoF, and have started Order of the Phoenix, which is probably the one I've read the most. I harbor an undying passion for Gilderoy Lockhart, but there just isn't enough stuff in CoS for it to be one's favorite.

Of course, I'd argue that there's a little too much stuff in OotP, but really just the Grawp storyline. That needs to be cut right out. Everything else is swell.

 Anyway, my original question. Why is it awesome? Harry Potter, I've found, unlike basically everything else I've ever read, can make me laugh on one page and literally cry on the next (this laughing/crying usually has to do with the Weasleys, as EMOTIONAL THINGS happen to them). I suck at analyzing literature (which is why I have a book blog!), so I have no idea how J.K. Rowling makes you care about her characters so much, but all I know is that when I read about Amelia Bones' -- an INSANELY minor character -- death in book 6, I had to put the book down and cry. Because I had just read about her questioning Harry about his Patronus, and now she was gone.

 I think two of the only other authors who've made me that attached to their characters were Dickens and Edith Wharton, and definitely not with everything they've written. Dickens, maybe just with Bleak House, and Wharton with Ethan Frome. But even with Dickens, his characters tend not to be real enough for me to really, really care about them. They're almost all constrained by what was proper for the Victorian novel.
 Basically, Harry Potter is the best thing ever and the fact that J.K. Rowling isn't a smug jackass after her books have been lauded almost to the point of worship means she's an extraordinary human being.

Does anyone have a different favorite? I would've said Deathly Hallows, but I feel like saying that's one's favorite HP is like a Christian saying the Bible's their favorite book. "Yes, that's a given, but ASIDE from that..."

Dickens and My Kind of Overblown Prejudice Against Him

Like many people, I have a tendency to simplify things in my world through generalizations. Generalizations are awesome. If I were younger and more crass, I might even say they were the shit. If we didn’t have generalizations, every single topic would take hours to go through in our minds because there are so very, very many exceptions to absolutely everything.

With this in mind, I’m going to talk about Dickens. I’m going to be writing about him soon for the Austen vs. Dickens thrown-down that is currently sweeping the interwebs, but for right now I’d like to discuss his douchiness. My one thing I’d like those touchy people out there to bear in mind is that I am well aware that I’ve never met Mr. Dickens, and I do not know the exact circumstances of his mid-19^th century situation. Could there have been mitigating circumstances to alleviate his douchiness? Yeah, probably. But I’m still going to be pissed off about it.

For those who have not read an excessive amount of his works (read: maybe four or five), there is a pattern to the lady characters. Namely, heroines are not allowed to be funny. Blowsy side characters are, yes, and almost always unbeknownst to them, but heroines are strictly forbidden from humor. With the exception of Bella Wilfer in Our Mutual Friend, but then, she’s not quite a heroine to him, is she? Louisa Gradgrind is also an exception, but Hard Times is pretty much just a giant essay on why Utilitarianism is bad, so I see her as less of a character and more of a tool used to prove a point. But that’s another post.

I can already feel my feminist hackles rising, and as I strain not to rant here in a serious way, for it is a place of lightness and frivolity, I shall calm myself. *breathes deeply* Right. So Dickens’ heroines have to be saint-like. Their main features tend to be that they only want to care for those around them and hopefully get married so they can do that 24/7.

Dickens’ particular brand of hypocritical asshattery comes about because, despite his constant assertions of how wonderful the Victorian nuclear family can be, he leaves his wife in 1858 and takes up with – dear God – an actress. The lowest moral being imaginable (if you’re a parson in 1845). But he continues writing about how the ideal woman is a homebody who spends all her time caring for those around her and having close to no personality at all.

Unlike Steinbeck, whom I would make out with in two seconds, I have zero interest in meeting Dickens (since both of these are so very possible, I thought I’d make my stances clear). My entire perception of him is colored by this wife-leaving fact. And not even so much the wife-leaving, but the subsequent hypocrisy of his books. It just sucks. I still unfortunately love said books, and will be writing about why he kicks Austen’s delightful Regency ass in nine days, but the reading of them is always marred for me the slightest bit by him being a douchebag.

A List! Because Those're Always Fun

It's Monday! What are you reading is hosted by One Person's Journey through a world of Books. Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.

I am, as usual, working on way too many books at once and possibly shall never finish any of them. A quick review!:

1. The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens. I’m reading this for both the TBR Challenge AND the Dickens/Austen Challenge. I was assigned the final day, which I feel either puts pressure on me to deliver in my reasoning of why Dickens kicks Austen’s ass, or maybe everyone’ll have stopped caring by then. Hm. Anyway, I keep wanting to dislike this book and I CANNOT BECAUSE IT IS TOO GOOD. Damn you, Dickens!

2. Slammerkin, Emma Donoghue. This rocks. I’ve never cared about the 18^th century, and this makes me care because Emma Donoghue did so fricking much research for it. There’re all these details about how one got by as a prostitute in 1700s England, which, y’know, is useful in case a freak time machine accident ever sends you back there and you end up a little hard on your luck. Was I aware of how important brightly colored clothes were? I mean, I’ve seen movies, but no, I assumed that was just because the prostitutes had horrible taste. But NO. Apparently if the aforementioned occurrence did, in fact, occur, I would have to forsake my beloved black/grey/brown tones and invest in maybe some actual "colors."

3. Magyk, Angie Sage. At some point in the past this was free for the Kindle, so I snatched it up and recently started reading it. It’s somewhat slow-going, but that’s probably because I’m reading it so very very slowly. So far it seems to be another “YOU’RE A WIZARD, LAD!” types of book. I mean, that’s fine; I enjoy that genre, and the author’s certainly not bad at her job. I don’t expect it to be a favorite series, though.

4. Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee. Really depressing. And I in general don't care about old men living in foreign lands, so that's two strikes right there.

5. The Bible, God. I’m reading Judges right now, and it just got awesome. One of the “judges” (leaders) just went to the King of Moab, said “I have a message from God” and stabbed him in the stomach, making “his bowels discharge.” Yeah. So that happened. And then Jael, the wife of…someone, stabbed an enemy in the head with a tent peg while he was asleep. I cannot tell you how much better this is than reading about how many inches from the shoulder they should make the ephod when sewing it (thank you, Exodus).

6. Devil in the White City, Erik Larsen. This is all right. I haven’t paid it much attention. I bought it while drunk, which would be a downside of the Kindle, because how many times are you drunk in a bookstore? Hm…But no, it seems kind of de rigueur, if you will, to read this if you live in Chicago. The opening talks about why we got the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which mainly seems to be because New York wanted it and we were like “HEY! NO!” And then we got it because we’re awesome.

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It would be so lovely if I finished any one of these. I did, in fact, just finish Hell House, but that was one of those 'I regret reading this' sorts of books, so I don't feel like it truly counts, you know? Anyway, all I'm really doing is waiting for the Chicago Public Library to send my copy of Bossypants to my particular branch so that I might bask in the radiance of Tina Fey's thoughts on paper.